Part 57 (1/2)

”But!...”

”Now, look here, Mac,” Cream firmly proceeded, ”you be guided by me.

You're a youngster at the game, and I'm an old hand. I never met a young author yet that didn't imagine his play had come straight from the mind of G.o.d and mustn't have a word altered. The tip-top chaps don't think like that. They're always altering and changing their plays during rehearsal ... and sometimes after they've been produced, too.

Look at Pinero! He's altered the whole end of a play before now. He had a most unhappy end to _The Profligate_ ... the hero committed suicide in the last act ... but the public wouldn't have it. They said they wanted a happy end, and Pinero had the good sense to give it to them. In my opinion the public was right. The happy end was the right end for that piece!...”

”But artistically!...” John pleaded.

”Artistically!” Cream exclaimed in mocking tones to Hinde. ”I ask you!

Artistically! What's Art? Pleasing people. That's what Art is!”

”Oh, no,” John protested. ”Pleasing yourself, perhaps!...”

”And aren't you most pleased when you feel that people are pleased with you, I ask you! What do you publish books for if you only want to please yourself? Why don't you keep your great thoughts to yourself if you don't want to please anybody else? Yah-r-r, this Art talk makes me feel sick. You'd rather sell two thousand copies of a book than two hundred, wouldn't you? Of course, you would. I've heard these highbrow chaps talking about the Mob and the Tasteful Few. I acted in a play once by a fellow who was always bleating about the Tasteful Few ... and you should have heard the way he went on when his play only drew the Tasteful Few to see it. If his piece had had a chance of a long run, do you think he'd have stopped it at the end of a month because he objected to long runs as demoralizing to Art? Not likely, my lad!...

Now, this piece of yours, Mac, has too much talk in it and not enough incident, see! You'll have to cut some of it. The talk's good, but in plays the talk mustn't take the audience off the point, no matter how good it is. See! You don't want long speeches: you want short ones. The talk ought to be like a couple of chaps sparring ... only not too much fancy work. I've seen a lot of boxing in my time. There's boxers that goes in for what's called pretty work ... nice, neat boxing ... but the spectators soon begin to yawn over it. What people like to see is one chap getting a smack on the jaw and the other chap getting a black eye. And it's the same with everything. Ever seen Cinquevalli balancing a billiard ball on top of another one? Took him years to learn that trick, but he'll tell you himself ... he lives round the corner from here ... that his audiences take more interest in some flashy-looking thing that's dead easy to do. When he throws a cannon-ball up into the air and catches it on the back of his neck ... they think that's wonderful ... but it isn't half so wonderful as balancing one billiard ball on top of another one. See? So it's no good being subtle before simple people. They don't understand you, and they just get up and walk out or give you the bird!...”

”I'm going to tell you something,” he continued, as if he had not said a word before. ”I've noticed human nature a good deal, and I think I know something about it. There was a sketch we did once, called _The Twiddley Bits_. It was written by the same chap that did _The Girl Who Gets Left_ ... he had a knack, that chap ... only he took to drink and died. There was a joke in _The Twiddley Bits_ that went down everywhere. Here it is. I played the part of a comic footman, and I had to say to the villain, 'What are you looking at, guv'nor?' and he replied, 'I'm wondering what on earth that is!' and then he pointed to my face. That got a laugh to start with. Then I had to say, 'It's my face. What did you think it was? A sardine tin?' That got a roar.

Brought the house down, that did. We played that piece all over the world, Mac, and that joke never failed once. Not once. We played it in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, America, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, and it never missed once. Fetched 'em every time. Human nature's about the same everywhere, once you get to understand it, Mac, and if you like you can put that joke in your play. It'll help it out a bit in the middle!...”

VII

”Well?” said Hinde to John when Cream had left them.

”I'd rather sell happorths of tea and sugar than write the kind of play he wants,” John replied.

Hinde paused for a few moments. Then he said, ”Why don't you sell tea and sugar. You've got a shop, haven't you?”

”Because I'm going to write books,” John answered tartly.

”I see,” said Hinde.

THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

I

Three months after Mrs. MacDermott departed from London, Eleanor and John were married. They walked into St. Chad's Church in the Bayswater Road, accompanied by Mr. Hinde and Mrs. MacDermott (who had come hurriedly to London again for the ceremony) and Lizzie and a cousin of Eleanor's who excited John's wrath by using the marriage ceremony for propaganda purposes in connexion with Women's Suffrage; and there, prompted by an asthmatic curate, they swore to love and cherish each other until death did them part. Mrs. MacDermott had begged for a Presbyterian marriage in Ballyards ... ”where your da and me were married”... but there were difficulties in the way of satisfying her desire, and she had consented to see them married in what, to her mind, was an imitation of a Papist church. Eleanor had stipulated for at least a year's engagement, partly so that they might become more certain of each other and partly to enable John to prove that he could earn enough money to maintain a home, but John had worn down her opposition to an immediate marriage by a.s.serting repeatedly that he could easily earn money for her, would, in fact, be better able to do so because of his marriage which would stimulate him to greater activity, and, finally, by his announcement that his tragedy had been accepted for production by the Cottenham Repertory Theatre. The manager had written to him to say that the Reading Committee were of opinion that his interesting play should be performed, and he enclosed an agreement which he desired John to sign and return to him at his convenience. He had not been able to restrain his joy when he received the letter, and he had hurried to the nearest post office so that he might telephone the news to Eleanor.

”My dear!” she said proudly over the telephone.

”Didn't I tell you I could do it,” he exclaimed. ”Didn't I?”

”Yes, darling, you did!”

”Wait till Hinde conies back! This'll be one in the eye for him. He thought the play was a very ordinary one, but this proves that it isn't, doesn't it, Eleanor?”

”Yes, dear!”